Monday, July 15, 2013

The problem of correctly identifying BPL
beneficiaries is a real hurdle to getting food to the poor. How does the
ordinance aim to address this?

Politics has won over concern for the poor and the government has pushed the
Food Security Bill through an ordinance. Images of the Congress top brass are
flooding TV screens, shyly taking credit for this great bonanza for the poor.
Congress leaders are making non-stop statements about how the Congress Party,
under the leadership of Mrs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, has fought all odds
(read the Bharatiya Janata Party) to get food to the poor. It’s been a
political coup and the BJP must admit that it has been sledge-hammered by its
own brand of ninny politics.

While there have been supporters of the Food Security Bill in civil society,
notably the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council, many others have
opposed the bill, calling it opportunistic, political gimmickry and plain
unworkable. The well intentioned Right to Food Campaign was unwilling to extend
the contours of the bill and include the production of food in its demands, so
even those who challenged the government draft restricted themselves to the
distribution of food, which is only what the Food Security Bill is all about.

According to the ordinance, five kg of rice or wheat or millets per month will
be given to a beneficiary at subsidised rates of `3, `2 and `1 respectively. A
family of five will therefore be entitled to receive 25 kgs of grain per month
under the food law. The Bill aims to cover 75 per cent of rural India,
of which 46 per cent lives below the poverty line (BPL), and 50 per cent of
urban India, of
which 20 per cent is BPL. According to the government, 67 per cent of all
Indians will be the priority group for the Food Security Bill, which means
close to 85 crore Indians will be entitled to avail subsidised grain.
Far from taking pride in this figure, we should be shocked that the government
is willing to put so many people on dole to win an election but is not willing
to take steps to support farmers, strengthen agriculture and food production
and make people self-reliant.
At a meeting some months before the ordinance, minister of state for consumer
affairs, food and public distribution K.V. Thomas stated that about 65 million
tons of foodgrain will have to be procured to implement the bill. Taking all
factors into account, the total cost to the government at current prices would
be about `1,40,000 crore since the state governments are passing on the
transportation costs and commissions.

Mr Thomas conceded that storage capacity was not adequate to hold the procured
grain and would need to be increased. If all goes according to plan, the
ordinance will roll out in six months, but will the storage space be available
by then, or will we again be shocked by mountains of grain rotting in the open?

A major problem of the current food support schemes is the large number of
bogus registrations under the BPL category. Correctly identifying BPL
beneficiaries is the real hurdle. How does the ordinance aim to address this
problem? A Planning Commission report says that “about 58 per cent of the
subsidised food grains issued from the Central pool do not reach the BPL
households because of identification errors, non-transparent operation and
unethical practices in the implementation of targeted PDS”.
The government’s spokespersons say that once the Aadhar programme comes into
play and Unique Identification Numbers (UIDs) are allotted, the problem will be
fixed. But how? All we may get to know is that these numbers or those did not
get the rations they are entitled to. How will implementing the Aadhar scheme
ensure that the people in the BPL list are those who are genuinely in need and
not the favoured of local politicians? BPL lists are notoriously false.

In Jharkhand, a Gene Campaign study showed how muddled and biased the situation
is with respect to those entitled to receive food support. Many of the poorest
and infirm were unaware that they were entitled to food allocations; they were
simply left out because they could not press their case. The lists sent up by
the panchayat included the names of family members and political supporters,
people to be granted favours. How will the UID fix this problem? Or how will it
stop the hijacking of food or the hoarding and black-marketing of grains?

As several policy inputs have recommended, the only realistic way of tackling
the leaking public distribution system is to decentralise procurement and
distribution, increase public participation and transparency. This can be best
done by procuring the grain (and other foods) locally. The closer the
procurement centre is to the distribution centre, the greater the possibility
of people’s vigilance and, therefore, diminished opportunities for pilferage.
But in the current scheme, grain procurement will still be done from “surplus”
states like Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana and
shipped thousands of kilometers away. The long transport route will continue to
leak food all the way and Aadhar or no Aadhar, it will be difficult to plug the
pilfering. So wastage of grain is likely to remain high during procurement,
storage, transportation and distribution and there is nothing apparent in the
food ordinance that will tackle these problems.

There can be no question that the government must do all it can to provide food
security to the poor and handicapped, but this cynical bill, with its eye on
the 2014 polls, is not any answer to the problems of hunger and malnutrition.
The people of India
are entitled to a better deal than this politically opportunistic bill. If the
government is unwilling to listen, can the Opposition force the new ordinance
back to the drafting board and give people an opportunity to draft another,
better law?The writer, chairperson of Gene Campaign, is a scientist and development
activist. She can be reached at mail@genecampaign.org

Monday, July 8, 2013

Suman Sahai

Many of us
who live and work in Uttarakhand have seen this disaster coming. Environmental
groups have tried, unsuccessfully, to warn of the coming tragedy but no one was
listening. Iam not sure they are listening now either. Their eyes glazed over
with the prospect of billions to be made from the rape of the Himalayas and the
destruction of the livelihoods of the mountain people, the builders,
contractors and their partners in crime in Dehradun and Delhi are not deterred
by this blip of human and environmental catastrophe .

Those in
Delhi can take solace in the fact that the Tehri dam , that swollen grenade
waiting to burst its casing, is still standing. It may not be standing in its
quiet corner for very longin the
youngest, most fragile mountain of the world,if therelentless assault on the
Himalayascontinues. The fractured rocks
of this young and still emerging mountain range, considered exceedingly fragile
and unstable by geologists, will not be able to withstandthe instability caused by repeated blasting
of the mountains to make roads, resorts and installations. The day the
Tehridam collapses, the waters, it is
anticipated, will reach Delhi, totally submerging Haridwar and Rishikeshand sweeping aside everythingin its path.

A friend
described atrip to Uttarkashiwhere they had gone to make a collection of
botanical specimens last year . As they rattled along in their government issue
jeep,they heard a rumbling, then sounds
like thunder claps and in seconds a river of rocks and stones poured down the
hillside. They were in the way and it was because the driver practicallystood on the brakes that the jeep stopped a
whisker short. What shook the travellers was the speed and velocity with which
huge boulders and rocks came down. It was the speed with which the rocks and
slush poured into Kedarnath this timethat left no time for escape.

The contractor who had nearly killed this team
of scientists came running to apologise.He admitted that they would be blasting at severalsites and was shaken enough to confess that
no safety norms were adhered to,to cut
costs. He added that by the time he had greased palms from top to bottom, to
get the contract, his operating budget was considerably reduced and if he did
not cut corners, he could not complete the work and make his (substantial)
profit . We know this modusfrom many
other schemes and projects where bridges and houses collapse, roads get washed
away and people lose their lives.In
this grotesquebusiness scheme where an
unscrupulous nexus of the ungodly rake in milions , loss of human lives and
property is par for the course.

Tubewells are
being dug through the fragile geological layers in Uttarakhandin perversely designed programs to provide
drinking water. The current administration has refused to listen to geologists
who have warned that fracturing layers ofrock , going down several hundred feet in this mannerwas a recipe for disaster since the drilling
would destabilize the formations and cause instability.

I am filled with apprehensionwhen I read that Rs 1000 crore have been
allocated for the rehabilitation of Uttarakhand and appeals have been sent out
in the name of the Chief minister’s Fund, the Prime Minister’s Fundand so forth. The people of this country have
begun to pour in contributions to help the people of Uttarakhandrebuild their lives. On the other hand,
speculation is already on about how much of the 1000 crore grantwill be siphoned off along the chain of
bureaucrats , politicians and their partners in crime, with estimatesgoingup to 800 to 900 crores!Some fat
cats are going to get fatter and the lives of the poor mountain people will not
improve. Some roadswill be patched up
to get washed away next monsoon, some families will get a tenth of their entitlement
to rebuilda room or two in their
houses. Fake registers will be filled up to show relief materials have been
delivered to ‘beneficiaries- that dreadful word. And the sleazy and powerful in
India will continue to build empires on the miseryof the poor.

About Me

Dr. Suman Sahai, who has had a distinguished scientific career in the field of genetics, is a recipient of the Padma Shri,the Borlaug Award, Outstanding Woman Achiever awards, the BirbalSahni Gold Medal and the Order of the Golden Ark .
Dr. Sahai is founder Chairperson of the Gene Campaign which is a leading research and advocacy organization, working on issues relating to food, nutrition and livelihoods. She has published extensively on science and policy issues and is a member of several national policy forums on scientific research and education, biodiversity and environment, biotechnology and bioethics as well as intellectual property rights.
Dr Sahai chaired India’s Planning Commission Task Force on ‘Agro biodiversity and Genetically Engineered Organisms’, for the XIth Plan. She was a member of the Steering Committee of the National Biodiversity Board , the Expert Committee on Biotechnology Policy and the Bioethics Committee of the Indian Council of Medical Research.She has served on the Research Advisory Committees of national scientific institutions.
Dr Sahai can be reached at www.genecampaign.org and mail@genecampaign.org